July 25th Resting before California tomorrow..

Resting up, very hot here.  Already 106, up to 117 today! Hot tomorrow in Descanso as well.  The Southwest is in the middle of a huge heat wave!  

First thing, we went to Wal Mart for provisions:

May go to Goodwill for a new parka.  Bette doesn't like the fit of the one I bought.  

Running around like crazy....

Started out looking for some sort of window treatments for the river room. Total bust. Saw nothing that was even remotely desirable. What a drag.

Made a Home Depot stop to check for shelves for the River Room. As per usual, we couldn't agree on style, size, weight, etc.

Made the stop we do most every day, to the Publix for my papers.. got to keep informed, plus I do the crossword.....

Went to Radio Shack to get some snap on connectors for the Direct TV receivers, since we move them back and forth between the houses and the motor homes.

Trying to help poor Buster out.. Didn't work

Yesterday and today, poor Buster for some reason has been shaking like a leaf from we think getting his haircut. So while we were out on our shopping run, we stopped by Petco to see about one of those silly Dog Snuggie things. We brought it home, and well, it was stupid. Back to the store for something else tomorrrow. Really silly looking on him.

Purchase of the day!

While we were in Bed Bath and Beyond today looking for curtains for the river room, we went "Beyond" They had the Billy Mays (RIP) Big City Slider Station super stovetop slider maker on sale... Not 19.99, plus 8.50 shipping, but only 9.99!!! Jumped right on that, we did. I'll make a report when we have our first sliders.....

California Trip Booked !!!

Since we have pretty much decided to do the big loop trip in the motor home this summer, we decided to zip on out to San Diego/Carlsbad to see Mom Zona for a week in March- Leave JAX at 1055, arrive SAN at 1515, then the following Tuesday, leave SAN at 0855 and get back to JAX at 1810. Stopping through DFW both legs. Very much looking forward to seeing the California side of our lives for some good food, and good company!

New Chair and look for the River Room

Went out today and got a new office chair for the river room- we had been using an old folding chair, and it wasn't very comfortable. The new one is very nice, and we got it on sale for only $69.00.

Since we put the new windows out in the river room, we decided to split the couches, and create a water-side lounge, and then a love seat on the other wall of the room. It really opened up the room. Notice the very chilly sleepy dog under his bright red blankee- he's been shivering for most of the day, for some reason.

Bette also got a new chair for her office in the kitchen, a smaller version of mine..

Took me about an hour to get them put together- They wanted $15.00 to do it- so hooray for DIY~!

Leftover chicken tonight, from Red Lobster last night....

Back to the florida routine!!

Up early to go to coffee club gang meeting, then out to McDonalds for breakfast, Publix for papers, D0llar Tree for glasses holder, Staples to get 2 new office chairs for Bette and my offices, then Wal Mart for groceries and stuff. Bette is headed back to Wal Mart to get curtains for the river room.

Talked to Cooper, he's got a wart that is being frozen, Aunt Skip has a surgery scheduled Jan 18th for a rotator cuff, and also talked to sister Sherry today. Looks like we may miss them in August, if they decide to go back to Scotland to play in the world Hickory club championships.

Our pal Kippy is having her MRI done this morning- hope she weathers that ok.

Now to go put the chairs together......

Back to Florida

Left Greenwood this morning at 715, frost all over the car, which was stuffed to the rafters with "Florida" stuff. Got here at 2:30, just as I predicted. Traffic not bad except for a back up in downtown Jax at the construction.

We're fixing to head over to Dan and Kippy's- they have a new kitty.... then out to dinner somewhere. Back to the Florida routine tomorrow!!

Christmas at Saddle Hill

Brandon is checking out the X Box 360 he got, Cooper is amazed by the PS3 Santa provided for him. I think Cooper was happiest with his idol jersey,

Tony makes the front page!

My son in law Tony made the front page of the Greenwood paper today... what a star!

Lander Classes Starting up

Spent several hours yesterday loading up materials for one of my two Lander classes I'll be teaching starting jan 11th. I'm teaching them on line this year. We'll see how that works out. Got 35 students in one class, and 20 in the other.
Classes run till May 3rd.

Merry Christmas to all

The Chrismas Lights at Leighter Museum, downtown
St. Augustine, Fl.
Cooper came over at 630 this morning, so we could go over to watch them open presents...they scored, believe me. Lots of clothes, shoes, and the big one, one got a new X Box and the other a new PS3. We'll go back over for a big dinner at 2.

It was cold and rainy today- I see that it is just now 77 degrees in St Augustine.... Think we might go back a day early!!! Man is it cold here!

2009 Trip Stats

A pretty good year for traveling. We were out a total of 122 nights, which is 26 less than last year. We spent $806 for camping, which is $16 less than last year. We did 12,339 miles this year, which is about 1500 more miles- which is because fuel wasn't $5.00 a gallon!

The longest trip we took in one day was 772 miles from Edison NJ straight through to Greenwood, SC, primarily so Cooper could get home to see his mom and dad and brother after being out for about a month.

We spent only 26 nights at Thousand Trails, which is proving to not be a wise investment so far. We plan to use them much more next year.

For 2010, we plan to go from St Augustine to Maine in the first week of May with our pals the Hartmans, stay in Maine for a month, then June 1 start heading out towards Washington State, then come down to Oregon, then Boise, Salt Lake City, Denver, and then over to see Sherry and Fred in Missouri and the Waschkas in El Dorado Ark, then not sure past that... may go to Ohio, may go to Greenwood, then anyway, wind up at St Augustine by about October 1. So that will be 5 months out.

This trip will get us to see the rest of the country we haven't seen, and we are totally looking forward to it. Lots of minor league baseball for me, crafts and resting for Bette.

Prior to the Hartmans coming, I plan to do a lot of the state of Florida I haven't seen, maybe on down to the Keys, and we'll go to New Port Richey to visit for sure, and do some spring baseball games in March.

Visit with the NCSO

I Facebooked that we were thinking of heading over to Newberry to visit some folks, and we got an invitation to come to the annual Christmas Dinner at the Newberry County Sheriff's Office, which they had at the Sheriff's Office. It was terrific seeing the old gang, whom I hadn't seen in about 8 years. There were lots of new faces, but the core group of the oldsters were still there. Typical great spread of food, and visiting celebrities.... Robert Stewart, the former Chief of SLED, lots of SCHP members, including Mark Gosnell, who is now a Captain, former Whitmire Chief Randy Epps, and all the Communication gals, our State Senator Ronnie Cromer, State Rep Walt McCloud, and lots of other folks, kids, and friends. We also stopped by old Newberry Federal and saw the crew there where Bette worked.
Tomorrow, we're off to Hodges to Sunrise Stained Glass to see Bev and Dave.

At Greenwood for the Holiday

We left St Augustine at 0730 this morning and rolled into Saddle Hill at about 245. Great to see the boys, and we went out to dinner at Applebees. We were going to take the boys to see Invictus tomorrow, but it isn't playing here in town.

Going to take the boys out tomorrow, and see what they might want for presents- I suspect it will be gift cards.

Rain today, but its almost 70 out

About 5 this morning a big set of rolling waves of rain came through, dumped probably over an inch or so, and wiped out our planned trip down to Flagler Beach to visit the motor home today- so we got up with Dan and Kippy and went to George's Diner for breakfast, and we'll make the Flagler trip tomorrow.

Sunday, we're heading up to Greenwood to spend Christmas with Tina and Tony and the boys.

New River Room Windows

The guys worked long and hard and got about 9 or 10 windows done yesterday, pretty much. They were going to be here at 7 this morning, but I don't think they got here until 9 or so.

I went to Dr Raymakers, and am now through with the first round of doctoring here in Florida. I'm all established, and all my tests and scans are in locally, so we're set on that front. Now to loose weight.

Window dudes are starting the job.

The team from WindowWorld in Jacksonville showed up, late, but they are here. They seem to know what they are doing, at least one of them, the other is a bit of a rookie. The senior guy said he had done about 20 installations out here. They are starting in the river room, and are supposed to take up to three days to complete.

More Ibises

A couple of Ibis showed up this morning- one close, one across the pond- They didn't have any luck fishing that I could see. The pond is getting a layer of pond scum, or some sort of algae, maybe that is not helping. Where are the grass carp?

Met Life Bird

Bette called me out to advise that the Met Life Blimp was passing over, sure enough, it was. Not sure where it had been, or where it was going, maybe over to Windemere to see what Tiger is up too.